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Ohio Unemployment Stays Unchanged in March

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio posted a 5.1% unemployment rate in March, unchanged from the month before, while the national unemployment rate last month was down a fifth of a percentage point from the February rate.

The U.S. unemployment rate in March 4.5%, 0.2 percentage points lower than in February 2017, according to a news release issued by the Ohio Department of Job and Family services.

Ohio’s unemployment rate in March was up from 5.0% in March 2016. The U.S. unemployment rate was half a percentage point lower than a year earlier.

Ohio’s nonagricultural wage and salary employment decreased 4,100 over the month, from a revised 5,522,800 in February to 5,518,700 in March 2017, according to the latest business establishment survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics in cooperation with ODJFS. The number of workers unemployed in Ohio in March was 294,000, unchanged from February.

Employment in goods-producing services, at 923,300, increased 1,300 over the month in construction, mining and logging, and manufacturing. The private service-providing sector, at 3,826,100, decreased 5,200, with losses in trade, transportation, and utilities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and financial activities surpassing gains in educational and health services, information and other services.

From March 2016 to March 2017, nonagricultural wage and salary employment grew 36,500, with employment in goods-producing industries increasing by 14,100. This included gains seen in manufacturing, the private service-providing sector, educational and health services, financial activities, and trade, transportation, and utilities.

Copyright 2018 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

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